His Brother's Keeper

It must have been a Sunday morning. Not only was I sleeping in a bit - probably 8:00 or so - but I’d actually cooked supper the night before. I don’t have energy for that, at least nothing much more complicated than warming something up or preparing from a package, after a day of work. I had made fritters: fish fritters, corn fritters. They were a big hit with the kids, as well as me, partly because they were so rare. It also helped that they were tasty.

I’d done them as simply as possible, Bisquick for batter, not using a big deep fryer, but pouring a smaller amount of cooking oil into a saucepan on the top of the stove and cooking a few at a time. Who had money back then for a deep fryer and the oil to fill it, mostly wasted after the cooking was over? Even then, using the saucepan, the leftover oil was reclaimed to go into the fridge to be used another time. We’d just have to put up with the fishy flavor that now tainted it.

In retrospect, it was that cheapness that caused the trouble. Had the oil been thrown out, there would have been no temptation.

It was morning, and Paul and Richard were hungry. Being only 5 or 6 and 9 or 10 respectively at the time, they had no idea that what they were trying to do was dangerous. They just knew they wanted more of what had been so good the night before. They’d watched me cook. They figured it’d be easy to do it themselves. They thought it would be nice not to wake Mother. So they poured the leftover oil into the saucepan, set it on the stove, and turned on the gas.

I was abruptly awakened by a loud scream, doors slamming, crying, feet running around my end of the trailer, and the sound of the outdoor faucet turning on. Lurching out of bed and down the hall, I spied the flame on the stove which I turned off, and the saucepan spilled onto the floor with still-hot grease spattered all over. Through the window I saw that Richard had his little brother outside getting a cold bath under the hose, despite his protests.

Obviously the hot oil had spilled over Paul, and just as obviously his brother knew the exact thing to do to mitigate the burns as fast as possible. It was over by the time I got there.

Paul wound up with first degree burn spatters on his chest and tummy. The doctor looked at them, prescribed some ointment, and sent us home, letting us all know just how lucky we’d been. A few months later there weren’t even any scars remaining, as his summer tan faded to the same color as the new skin.

Richard wasn’t quite so lucky. He’d been so busy taking care of his little brother that he “forgot” to turn that hose of cold water on his own foot, where some of the grease had spilled on him. It continued to burn him. He also didn’t mention it to the doctor, although he was along at the time, baby-sitters being an expense I didn’t use unnecessarily. The only reason I found out about his burn was when I noticed his foot was hurting him a few days later. Oh, and there were a couple spatters on his torso as well. Of course, as a mother I reacted by chewing him out for not taking care of himself as well as his brother!

I haven’t asked him for well over 25 years if he still has the scars on his chest and the top of his foot. (Until last night. He does, all of them.) Or if, so many years later, he remembers what happened and his own special brand of heroism. The boys fought all the years they were growing up together, and occasionally drove us all crazy. But when it really counted, he was there for his brother, doing what was needed and putting himself second. I’m still proud of him.